Icelandic designer and all round creative genius Siggi Eggertsson has released his latest animated piece. This kaleidoscopic 'color wheel' is typical of Siggi's geometric styling beautifully brought to life with fluid animated motion.

Studio AKA director Philip Hunt has collaborated with composer David Kamp on this surreal promo for Kvadrat, Europe’s leading manufacturer of designer textiles who create high quality contemporary textiles and textile-related product. This creative animated spot reflects Kvadrat's dedication to pushing the aesthetic, technological and artistic boundaries of their field which is characterised by: simplicity, colour and innovation.

It's Kvadrat's ambition to innovate and work frequently with leading designers, architects and artists. These include Alfredo Häberli, Peter Saville, Akira Minagawa, Tord Boontje, David Adjaye, Patricia Urquiola, Finn Sködt, Olafur Eliasson, Roman Signer, Thomas Demand, and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Their dedication to working with leading designers extends past their textile products explaining their excellent choice in commissioning Studio AKA to work with them on this project.

Trunk Animation director Rok Predin has yet again collaborated with composer Ivan Arnold. Typically Rok has been the driving force on these collaborative projects bringing in Ivan to compose to for his finished work. For 'The Chase' the initial concept came from Ivan, he wanted to work on a score with a "dynamic travelling rhythm" which is the central focus of the short rather than in the background. Naturally Ivan turned to Rok to work on the concept. The resulting short is a real treat and in typical Rok style there is a dark ending for the cute toy-like car.

Directors Mikkel Mainz Elkjær & Kenneth Ladekjær, students at The Animation Workshop, have rewarded us with this stunning animated short. Nine minutes of dialog-free action are packed into 'The Reward' which was inspired by dreams of glory and fame... we see two young boys set out on the treasure hunt of their lives. Enjoy!

Bang Ediciones is a Spanish publishing house specialising in comic books. Since its launch in March 2004, their passion for interesting illustration and storytelling has seen them expand from supporting local Barcelonan talent to authors of all nationalities. They're currently distributed across Spain and France... something needs to be done to get these gorgeous looking books translated into English.

One of their latest titles is 'La Migration: Opération Père Noël' by animator and Gobelins graduate Wassim Boutaleb. Unsurprisingly Wassim has animated a little book trailer to promote its release.

Cyriak Harris has turned his M.C. Escher-esq aesthetic to another superb music video, his second for a band signed to Ninja Tunes... take a look at the equally amazing Eskmo track 'We Got More'. This latest piece of mind bending animation is for 'Cirrus' by Bonobo taken from his forthcoming new album 'The North Borders' due in April.

Caleb Wood is an independent animator living in northern Minnesota, he's also a contributor to the rather exciting looking Late Night Work Club collective.

In his animated works he is most interested in the dynamism of the mundane and the overlooked abstract occurrences of day-to-day life. 'Ugly Man' sits comfortably in this description, but the project was cut short before its completion. Clearly not happy with its direction, Caleb posted an animated GIF and statement on his tumblr saying "uhhhhhhhh, I guess I'll upload this piece of shit to Vimeo soon." Caleb also invites people in his Vimeo profile to "check out calebdwood.tumblr.com/ to see all kinds of garbage"... maybe he's just lacking confidence in his own work, we thought 'Ugly Man' looked pretty good... definitely potential for a full short.

BBBlaster is a Vjing, illustration and animation project comprised of Loup Blaster and Dalkhafine. Its aim is to promote animation and electronic music from the North of France and release music via the GETFREAKY record label. Their latest audio visual project is this rather excellent music video for Hibou Blaster track 'A Very Unusual Map', check it out...

The Spray Gang recently got in touch with the Animated Review to announce the release of their latest Pink Panther themed screen print. Titled 'On Top', the 2 colour A2 screen print is available at £40.00 in a small edition of 20 all signed, stamped and numbered. Head over to the Spray Gang online store and grab one before they're all gone.

We love the beautifully simplistic animation in this promo tool for Cast Software created by Australian production company Oh Yeah Wow. This simplicity has allowed directors Seamus Spilsbury and Sam Lewis to bring a surprising amount of entertainment and humour to a spot promoting an incredibly dull sounding business... Kudos!!!

Czech director of music videos, commercials and shorts Petr Babinec recently unveiled his latest project, a music video for INEKAFE and their track 'Figúrka'. The video tells the story of everyday life in a world of matches! The animation was primarily handled by Oto Dostál and Vlaďka Macurová.

We came across a new magazine today called 'Box 1466' which describes itself as an "artfully independent deluxe fanzine publication." Quite boastful... you may have even imagined something quite beautiful, however the magazine was almost entirely rubbish! Dull interviews with fairly obnoxious arty types all wrapped up in a cheaply produced A4 format with the design and layout presumably done by somebody with zero experience in either. Quite frankly I’d be surprised if they made it beyond this launch issue.

As you might have already guessed we weren't keen so why are we bothering to post about it here?

The magazines one saving grace were the exceptionally quirky collages created by Monsieur XD. Sprinkled throughout the magazine these humorous fantasy images added a much needed splash of colour to the rest of the bland content. Whilst we disliked the magazine we were pleased to have stumbled upon the work of Monsieur XD... every cloud has a silver lining.

Monsieur XD started his artistic career designing for several well-known fashion brands, where he decided to evolve this role and develop his own projects including these collages. He describes his work as witty and delicate, blending aesthetic elements from the 50's and 60's with icons of contemporary pop culture, expressions of his life and the world around him, his personal vision of things.

We've posted a couple of our favourite images here that feature some recognisable animated icons. You can head over to Monsieur XD's website to view the entire series and purchase the original artworks (prices available upon request.)

Kristofer has turned his talents to CGI animation for the latest single by dubstep producer Xilent. Seamlessly blending retro 8-bit game graphics, live action and slick CGI, Kristofer perfectly translates the track's immense beat into a pulse racing shoot-em-up starring an unlikely hero.

The mysterious Late Night Work Club appeared on the Animated Review back in November 2012 when they released this teaser trailer promoting their secretive collective of indie animators who work late into the night producing animated shorts just for pure enjoyment.

Since November they've been pretty quiet, presumably beavering away on their first release 'Ghost Stories', which is due sometime in Spring. This teaser trailer for 'Ghost Stories' hints that this first release will be an anthology of spooky animated shorts showcasing the work of Charles Huettner, Eimhin McNamara, Eamonn Oneill, Sean Buckelew, Dave Prosser, Jake Armstrong, Erin Kilkenny, Alex Grigg, Daniella Orsini, Joe Orton, Conor Finnegan, Louise Bagnall, Christen Bach and Scott Benson.

The artists involved in this fantastic collaboration are working for the love of their medium not for any cash incentive, however if you want to help support the LNWC make sure to regularly check their blog for DIY-DVD downloads and other goodies. The forthcoming 'UNCANNY MYSTERY PACK', beautifully illustrated by Charles Huettner (seen below), is especially intriguing.

'Animal' is the latest animated short film in production from Mélanie Tourneur. As well as this beautifully animated teaser trailer you can head over to the 'Animal' production blog and browse a whole host of character designs and development artwork. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long to see the full short.

'Animal' tells the story of a young fox boy and a little owl girl. In a dark forest, the two children are getting to know each other. They start to play but will their wild animal instinct be too strong for this game of hide and seek?'

Mélanie typically works as a background artist for animated movies and TV shows whilst also working on her own projects like 'Animal'. You may have guessed from the look of this latest short that Mélanie held an internship at Cartoon Saloon working on the pilot of Disney production 'Rikki Doom' and other projects. There is an undeniable similarity in style between Mélanie's 'Animal' and Cartoon Saloon's 'The Secret Of Kells'. In addition she has also worked on Hefang Wei's short animated films produced by Folimage in France, which are also worth taking a look at.

Following on from 'Decorate', 'Katachi' is the second track to be released for Shugo Tokumaru's latest studio album 'In Focus?' As usual the track has been accompanied by a spectacular animated music video.

Created by Polish music video maestros Katarzyna Kijek and Przemysław Adamski, aka Kijek/Adamski, it brings together paper craft silhouettes with a reverse strata-cut style of animation. The energetic visuals centre around a constant succession of brightly coloured cut-outs featuring a dancing man morphing into an array of imaginative shapes.

We love Shugo Tokumaru’s music and the consistently beautiful animated visuals that go hand in hand with each release. We can’t wait to see what's going to come next.

CRCR recently directed this animated spot for French web-based music streaming service Deezer. Working with instantly recognisable deigns from McBess, the production team at WIZZdesign/QUAD race through a whole host of musical genres beautifully accompanied by ‘Wannamama’ (White Arc Dub – Deezer Mix), written and produced by Pop Levi.

Here's a sample of Masaki Okuda's amazing animation contained within the 'Masaki Okuda Works' DVD of which he has made just 80 copies. There isn't any word yet as to where and if these will be available to purchase. If anybody knows where we can get a copy we'd definitely be interested it looks great!

'Hammer & Hand' follows the mysterious journey of one man creating something bigger and better than himself. Directed by Colin Hesterly with animation and character design by Yassir Rasan via The Academy.

If you're a regular visitor of the Animated Review you'll know we like slightly off-kilter illustration of iconic cartoon characters, especially those of 'The Simpsons'.

In recent memory we've posted about DR.ME's 'Art Simpson' zine in which various artist re-drew Bart Simpson from memory and the creations loving collected in a fanzine format, Barber Filth's 'El Barto' riso-print and the hugely popular 'Simpsons Drawing Club', curated by Jack Teagle.

This 'Burt Sampson' zine, created by artists Jonathan Campolo & Alexander Lezzi, contains a collection of Bart Simpson inspired doodles and a commemorative fold-out poster all drawn in a single evening. Unfortunately we missed this one upon its release over a year ago and it's now long sold out, but when we heard about it we couldn't pass up the opportunity to post it here and add to our collection of bizarre Simpsons illustration.

Los Angeles based independent animator, Christopher Weller, animated this unauthorised stylised interpretation of the classic 8-bit arcade game 'Pac-Man'. 'Goodnight, Sweet PakMan' took 2 years to complete with Chris working on the parody in his spare time between paid jobs, having previously worked on Season 3 of ‘The Life And Times Of Tim’ and various web videos.

This is what Chris emailed us about the production of the short:

"In conceptualizing this piece, I was inspired by the “Gallery 1988” art exhibits that pop up frequently, which feature nostalgic and familiar 80’s cartoon and video game characters re-contextualized in various thoughtful and artistic ways. Even though those exhibits are mostly paintings, I wanted the aesthetic of this piece to be worthy of inclusion, and felt I really had to dissect the game and study its core. My big question before starting was, “After more than 30 years, why is Pac-Man still so widely recognized? What is it about Pac-Man that connects with people so well?“

I broke the game down to its basics: You’re a mouth, stuck in a never-ending maze, trying to eat all the food while evading death at every turn. Every 3 levels there is an animated ‘cinema scene’ of Pac-Man meeting a Ms. Pac-Man. They fall in love and every 3 levels produce another Pac-Man Jr. So the game is analogous to the very primal basics of life: Eating, procreating, and trying not to die. In Pac-Man, as in life, nobody “wins,” you just play until the ghosts are faster than you. Or you get really, really good and make it to level 256 and glitch out and break the Matrix.

Anyway, that is the core of what I wanted to preserve from the game while adapting it and rendering it in a much more complex style. I have been working a variety of different jobs within the animation and VFX industry for the last 8+ years, and I wanted to combine all the various skills and techniques I have learned (as well as figure out a bunch of new ones) and roll all them up into an explosive little short.

The piece was animated and composited entirely in After Effects, with a little Photoshop to allow me to hand-color the characters’ bodies. The Backgrounds were modeled in the free CAD program SketchUp.

Hope you enjoy, it was a blast to make. But after 2 years I’m glad it’s done so I can move on!"

Canadian illustrator Anna Bron initially created the 'We Found A New Land' image you see above as part of series of illustrations. Realising its potential as an animated short she set herself the task of turning out the animation in under two weeks. It ended up taking two months after being delayed by other projects, but 'Conquered' is finally up online.

The launch issue of 'Le Petit Néant' is limited to just 500 copies, but still available via their online store. This first issue is non-thematic, whilst subsequent issues will explore the possibilities of pictorial narrative.

Back in August 2011, we posted a series of audio visual promo's from Kelly Meador & Daniel Elwing aka Impactist for their 'Plants And Animals' EP. Now they've got an album coming out, titled 'Undercast Is Overrated' and available via their website, several tracks have again been treated to animated promotional sequences... enjoy!

Mikey Anderson takes his favourite pop culture icons and re-imagines them as zombies. These zombie-fied characters are then made into patches, key chains and t-shirts.

Mikey's inspiration often comes from cartoons saying, "I always preferred colourful Nickelodeon cartoons to playing sports. Fortunately all of those hours in front of the television screen have flooded my imagination with crazy creatures and questionable storylines."

You can see and purchase Mikey Anderson's creations over on his Etsy store 'Yarnies'.

'Half A Pantaloon' is the second short in animator Hector Herrera and writer/producer Pazit Cahlon's (aka Together) animated collection of silly rhymes called 'Beastly Bards'. This new piece tells of the perils of wearing short pants in professional situations.

If you missed it back in October 2012 you should also check out the first short, 'Typesetter Blues'.

Most of the adverts for McDonald's feature some degree of animation, but we've never felt compelled to share them here before now. Their latest advert, directed by Major Briggs at Blink, launches the newest addition to the McDonald's Little Tasters menu, the Chicken McBite.

The spot tells the deliciously dramatic story of a crispy bite of chicken that crash-lands in a blue ballpoint world and becomes the next big thing, much to the delight of its citizens. Being the crafty animation directors they are, Major Briggs have taken the average person's napkin doodle up a few notches, keeping the Chicken McBite fixed center screen as the intricately drawn universe brimming with clever details moves around it.

We missed the release of this superb print back in December, but it's too good not to post here.

Roman Minin is an artist from the far reaches of Eastern Europe, the city of Khakov in the Ukraine to be accurate. This 4 colour hand pulled screen print titled 'Homer' is available via Pictures On Walls in an unlimited edition for just £60. Due to border crossing issues the artist has stamped rather than signed each print.

This image is a reproduction of a huge mural painted by Roman on the side of Diaghilev's house in Perm seen below.

Kaleb Lechowski wrote, directed and animated this CG sci-fi epic titled 'R'ha'. The short was created during the first year of Kaleb studies in a seven month period of intensive work. Despite having dabbled with animation in Blender for about 5 years this is the first piece Kaleb has developed into a full film... remarkable isn't it?!

Globe's latest skateboard collaboration is with the 'Beavis and Butt-Head' franchise. Comprised of two boards, each featuring one of the two iconic cartoon characters, due for a release in the coming months.

Marcus Armitage created this exceptionally expressive and dynamic short as part of the "Embodying Voice" lip sync and character animation workshop completed in his first term of his Masters in Animation at the Royal College of Art, London.

Matt Layzell hasn't appeared on the Animated Review since the Mazes music video he created with his brother, Paul Layzell, which we posted back in April 2011. Their latest piece, 'Chickswithcheeks.org' is bizarrely hilarious! Apparently we can expect more in this series... we can't wait.

This amazing original drawing of Mickey Mouse from 1933 is the highlight of an extraordinary collection of original Disney drawings that have just gone on display (and presumably up for sale) at Tatton Park Antiques and Fine Art Fair, in Cheshire. The collection belongs to a "well known", but undisclosed, former Disney storyboard artist, who worked at the company in the 1930s and 1940s. The collection also includes an image that formed the basis for 'Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs' drawn in 1937.

Overture is the creative studio founded by Jason & Aya Brown. They describe themselves as two dreamers letting their thoughts overlap and mingle to realise the ideas and goals of their own imagination as well as those of their clients.

Their most recent project being this superb music video for The Kleenrz, (pronounced: Da Cleaners) is a collaboration by two LA rappers Self Jupiter and Kenny Segal, and their track 'Mr. Sandman. Head over to The Kleenrz website and check out their other videos too, they love animation!

Selected and edited by a leading animator, Laura Heit who is a faculty member in the Experimental Animation Program at CalArts, this is the first book to delve into the wild imaginations of over fifty great artists who bring their drawings to life through animation.

From cult indie works to award-winning films, from the hand crafted to computer rendered, animation has captured audiences throughout the history of the moving image. In animation imagination is unleashed. Free from constraint of actors, sets and location, animators can experiment, be wild, daring and surreal, and create characters, locations and sequences that do not have to conform to the physical world.

'Animation Skethcbooks' presents the private notebooks, sketches and doodles of the most inventive, innovative and admired animators at work in the world today. From left-field satire to hit children's TV series, from short animations for websites to full-scale, internationally distributed films, the book presents an astonishing array of creative’s, including Run Wrake, David Shrigley, Allison Schulnik, Regina Pessoa, David O'Reilly and Brent Green, casting light on the development of characters, forms, backgrounds and narrative sequences, and also showing finished frames that grew out of the initial, sketched ides.

Shin Hashimoto's latest hand drawn animated short, 'Beluga', is a surreal journey into the unnearving nightmarish memories and dreams of a young girl. The incredibly tense musical score from Marei Suyama aka NGATARI helps make the short that little bit more atmospheric.

Boston based experimental animator Jake Fried continues his series of moving paintings with 'The Deep End'. Created in the same time consuming manner as his previous works... one drawing, slowly altered with a quick drying matt white-out and touches of pen, ink and coffee... each alteration is consecutively scanned to create the frames of animation.

We've also posted his previous work, 'Sick Leave', for your enjoyment. In addition you can check out earlier shorts from Jake to be featured on the Animated Review here: Jake Fried

Continuing to document his obsessive caravan painting, street artist Sickboy brings out his latest instalment in his 'Carafanzine' series – a unique hand-finished, full colour, 52-page printed fanzine publication documenting his graffiti work.

'Carafanzine #3' is Sickboy’s highest quality self-publication to date, full of photographs taken on his caravan travels. Produced on 100% recycled paper stock and in a limited edition of 75, the 52-page fanzines are individually hand-finished with ink colourings and spray paint. This particular release is of interest to us at the Animated Review as each collectible zine also comes with an 80-page signed and numbered 'Temple Caravan' Flip Book, which animates images of Sickboy daubing up his classic temple logo onto the side of a caravan.

Sickboy's work is becoming increasingly popular, with wheelie bins sprayed with his iconic temple logo fetching up to £50,000, this zine pack limited to just 75 copies and priced at £50 is sure to sell pretty quickly. 'Carafanzine #3' was released right at the end of 2012, so you should head over to Sickboy's website to pick up a copy whilst they still last.

We posted an animated fable of judgement called 'Scale Guilt Court' from Korean web designer and animator Yongil Lee of Leeyongil Media LAB last October. The short was an impressive directorial debut telling the story of Dikē, the Greek goddess of moral justice, in a faux documentary narrative.

Yongil Lee's new short, 'The Journey In The Dream', is centred on the recent 2012 Korean presidential election.